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19 January 2023

Lefax City 10

I'm very grateful to Anita for sending me this very elegant Slimline Lefax organiser. 

Before we start looking at this particular organiser in detail, a quick recap about the history of the Lefax company. 

The company was founded in 1910 by J.C. Parker in Philadelphia, USA. Lefax existed before Filofax in fact! The two companies existed selling their own products until 1992, when Filofax bought the company. I'm not sure how long after the take-over that the Lefax products continued to be sold. However, the former Lefax shops were rebranded as Filofax soon after the take-over. 

The last Lefax catalogue I have in the collection is dated 1992. 

Looking through each of the Lefax catalogues we have (see the list below) you get the impression that the Lefax range was fairly stable for many years, it was similar to Filofax in a lot of ways, and also quite distinctive in other respects (check out the Charterhouse duplex). Thank you to Gmax, I've seen his Charterhouse, it is like two personal sized organisers that are 'siamese twins' with the front of one and the back of the other joined by hingeing section! 

Lefax also produced their own complete range of inserts to go with their products

The City10 has been in the catalogues/price lists for several years, it was most probably introduced earlier than we have records for. In each one we do have though it is described as: 
The City binder has been specifically designed with a 10mm ring mechanism to fit into the inside jacket pocket of a suit or into a small handbag. It will hold paper money securely in the two flap pockets on the inside front cover. 

The back cover has six credit card pockets with a full length pocket behind for receipts. It can comfortably accommodate a diary, some notepaper, a selection of specialist forms if required as well as plastic inserts for photos etc. Because the City binder is too narrow for the standard indexes we have designed the new A-ZCITY.  

 These are indexed name and telephone sheets designed to within the standard page size with indented tabs, two letters per tab. To separate sections of the binder it is always possible to use colour coding or acetate envelopes, but we have also developed the 4BT which gives four tabs at the top of the binder. 

The front and back cover are plain, no clasp. The leather is described as French Goat Leather, it is very soft and supple, there is no stiffener used in the binder construction. 

Two 'flap' pockets in the front cover make this an ideal candidate to double duty as a wallet/organiser. 

The inside cover shows the model details LEFAX, City, Made in England, CITY10 SP/6.. City 10mm SP I presume is a coding of the colour and 6 for the number of credit card pockets. Earlier catalogue entries show 5 credit card pockets for the City10

Comparing the Lefax to a similar ring size Filofax Holborn Slimline, the size reduction by Lefax becomes quite obvious. Note there is no pen loop on the Lefax, no room unless the pen was going to sit outside of the binder. 

I put a handful of note pages and a notepad in to the CITY and it all neatly fits in. There is about 4 mm between the edge of the page and the edge of the cover when closed, so if you do use side tabs they are flush or with a slight over-hang. But I'm sure I could make this work without side tabs easily. 

This particular example has been used, but it is in very good condition for its age. I like the simplicity of the design. 

Do you own any Lefax organisers?  

Previous Lefax Posts:

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6 comments:

  1. Caitlan19 January, 2023 03:26

    so beautiful. I think SP refers to the pocket on the left, either slip pocket or secretarial pocket.

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  2. Cori Large19 January, 2023 10:49

    I'm having deja vu with this post. I think my MIL had one of these and gave it to me. I'll check when I get home from work.

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  3. Anita20 January, 2023 08:32

    You are very welcome, Steve.
    It is a beautiful binder & I definitely would've kept it if it was personal size. I love slimline, but really need more ring space. I hope that you enjoy using it & I'm glad that it's gone to a good home, rather than sitting in my drawer.

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  4. Robert Konshak20 January, 2023 22:33

    eBay has Lefax paper for sale. Does that size of paper correspond to a current Filofax paper size?

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  5. Storm Bunny21 January, 2023 12:49

    Hello Steve! Zsu here, from Costa Rica. The concept of the Lefax seems nice, but I don't see how a calendar could work in there, unless you use monthy spreads or include only a couple of weeks at the time. However, the portability and the simple elegance of the binder are beautiful.

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